This is one of those recipes I come back to again and again. It’s everything I love in a meal: simple, comforting, full of flavour and ready in under half an hour. The orzo turns beautifully creamy as it cooks, soaking up the sweetness of the tomatoes, the richness of the coconut milk and all that fresh basil. It’s a perfect one pan dinner for busy evenings and makes brilliant leftovers too, just loosen with a splash of stock as you reheat.
Serves 4
Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 shallots or 1 onion
4 garlic cloves, crushed
2 punnets of cherry tomatoes (about 400g), halved
300g orzo
300ml hot vegetable stock
1 × 400g tin of plum tomatoes
1 × 400ml tin of coconut milk
1 teaspoon brown rice miso (optional)
1 × 400g tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed
grated zest and juice of 1 juicy lemon
1 teaspoon maple syrup
2 bunches of basil (about 50g), leaves picked and roughly torn
sea salt and black pepper
Method
Set a medium frying pan over a medium heat, add the olive oil, and cook the shallots, stirring them every so often for 5 minutes, until they start to soften.
Add the garlic and cherry tomatoes, and cook for a further 2 minutes, before pouring in the orzo, stock, plum tomatoes and coconut milk. Gently break the plum tomatoes up with the back of a wooden spoon, then bring the mixture to the boil, before reducing to a simmer and cooking for 15–17 minutes. The orzo should be cooked and the dish should feel deliciously creamy with any excess liquid absorbed.
Add the miso and the butter beans. Let the butter beans warm through in the sauce for 2 minutes, then add the lemon zest and juice, maple syrup and basil for a final minute, before seasoning with lots of salt and pepper.
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